Q-3PO: Welcome everyone, glad you could make it!
Q-3PO: The panel will now introduce themselves:
Whinny_the_Hutt: I'm Jeff Freeman, World Builder. Nice to be here. :)
JuJuBeenks: I'm Cinco Barnes - the lead world designer :) Hey there!
Shug_Ninx: Welcome. This should prove one of our more interesting chats . Hope you enjoy. In case you don't know, I'm the Producer from LucasArts...
IG-72: Hi I'm Todd Bailey and I'm a world builder. Nice to be here. :)
Q-3PO: The topic of today's chat is worldbuilding and continuity. Please /msg marluke with your questions.

Marluka: *Varkus* could you explain "theme parks"?

Marluka: *Bountytaker* "Can you tell us a new planet besides the CGW one?
JuJuBeenks: "Theme Parks" are carefully hand-crafted content. They are narrative experiences where you'll meet well-known Star Wars characters... and do series' of quests on their behalf.
Shug_Ninx: Yes! Right now, we're working on a planet called "Rori". It's a moon of Naboo. (The team named it). We're theorizing that it was colonized by the Naboo (like Ohma D'un, another moon of Naboo).

Marluka: *Tor_Genghyss* will there be any competitive PvP missions, with mission-takers from each faction but only one reward?
Whinny_the_Hutt: That's not really within the scope of worldbuilding and themeparks, because we have a robust mission system that creates missions for you to complete. We do have some themepark NPCs that pull from the mission system in certain cases, but we don't want to require people to engage in PvP in order to complete a themepark quest series... so if there are PvP missions (such as bounty hunter missions, for example), we'd want to filter thos
Shug_Ninx: Just a quick clarificaiton - Ohma D'un was colonized by the Gungans...

Marluka: *Mackle* to Cinco Do you have any involvement in building the methods for players to build their own cities and structures?
JuJuBeenks: The Systems Designers handle the player city system. Our responsibility is to craft the interior layouts: we put together the requirements for the venues (how many folks they support, etc.).
JuJuBeenks: We are primarily responsible for building the 'known' locations in Star Wars Continuity. Places like "Mos Espa" or "Theed".

Marluka: *Mistfreshie* Whats so interesting about quests if all rare items are made by players anyway?
IG-72: Aside from dealing with NPC's and seeing the locations and characters from the movies, players will need to complete quests to get the components to make those rare items. :)
Shug_Ninx: Some of these quests will also help build your faction standing.

Marluka: *Tybor* Which decission where you most sad of when it was cancelled because it doesn't fit in the SW continuity?
JuJuBeenks: Yoda.
Whinny_the_Hutt: Rainbow lightsabers.
Shug_Ninx: Allowing players to be stormtroopers.

Marluka: *GrandCzar* What are you doing so high interest places, such as theme parks, don't become to over populated?
JuJuBeenks: We are controlling access to the specialized areas of theme parks: players have to 'earn' their way in. Thereafter, players are sent away from the primary theme park area to pursue quest objectives.

Marluka: *Spyer* What is the biggest continuity question you've had to deal with so far?
Shug_Ninx: There are so many...
JuJuBeenks: Ewoks are a big continuity question. For instance - what happens if you don't have a Protocol droid to translate...?
Shug_Ninx: Probably dealing with Jedi is #1. How to use specific planets is also up there. Shields vs armor is a recent one...

Marluka: *LilWookie* Will there be missions for all disciplines?
Shug_Ninx: Yes.
IG-72: Yes.
Whinny_the_Hutt: Yes
JuJuBeenks: Yes. There is a great mission system that supports all kinds of playstyles :)
Q-3PO: Here's one from the boards:

Marluka: Blackbriar: Could you give an example of "Point of Interest"?
Whinny_the_Hutt: Okay, well first a point of interest is a dynamically created "scene" that you can run across
Whinny_the_Hutt: more or less at random.
Whinny_the_Hutt: As an example, on tatooine you might run across a sand crawler with jawas loitering around outside.
Whinny_the_Hutt: As you approach the Jawas, they're suddenly attacked by Sandpeople.
Whinny_the_Hutt: And maybe you can save the Jawas and get a reward from them, or let the Sandpeople kill them,
Whinny_the_Hutt: or kill everything yourself...

Marluka: *MarkusSparkus* Will it cost money (or any other resource?) to enter theme parks?
IG-72: It won't cost actual credits to get into a themepark, but it will require you to have certain faction standing or experience. And getting to that point will probably cost something. :)

Marluka: *Bitmap* Are there going to be quests that force you to visit several planets?
Whinny_the_Hutt: Not so much. :) We're planning for some high level themepark quests that require you to travel to another
Whinny_the_Hutt: planet, but not any that require you to visit a large number of other planets.
Whinny_the_Hutt: We don't want a themepark quest to take sooooo long to complete. :)

Marluka: *Pistol* Are theme parks strictly PVE?
JuJuBeenks: Yes. Theme parks are definitely PvE-focused.

Marluka: *JediHil* will our in-game actions have an effect on the world around us, specifically will our characters be able to effect the "story-arc"?
Shug_Ninx: Well, this is a tricky one to be sure. We can't allow you to have a major impact on the ongoing trilogy story arc...
Shug_Ninx: You can't kill Jabba, for example, because we know that Leia kills Jabba.
Shug_Ninx: However, we are allowing you to have significant impact on the game world.
Shug_Ninx: You can bring your faction to greater power, build cities, etc.

Marluka: *Shunkaha* : Will the Wookie’s life’s debt be present? Or can the players create it?
IG-72: It's up to the Wookie in question to live up to that life debt but it won't be enforced by the game.
Shug_Ninx: We hope you roleplay it. Wookiee!
IG-72: I meant Wookiee

Marluka: *Funkster* "Can you do Theme Parks as a Group or PA?"

Marluka: *Geiger1* How has the forum and the discussions in chat helped you with the planets and the interation we will be having
Whinny_the_Hutt: These questions are related. We hadn't planned on making any specifically GROUP missions or PA missions initially.
Whinny_the_Hutt: But someone (sorry, I don't recall who posted it!) mentioned it on the forums, and we liked the idea.
Whinny_the_Hutt: So there are definitely quests for PA's, and also quests from groups of players that aren't in PA's.

Marluka: *The_Vigilant_One* Could you explain in more detail the narrative system. Is it EQ style with keywords?
JuJuBeenks: The conversation system does not use keywords. You have an array of options to choose from - a lot like an adventure game.
JuJuBeenks: It's a graphical interface. Your choices expand and contract depending upon quest conditions :)

Marluka: *Killjoy-X* Are the non-player missions fairly linear, or do they branch in Choose Your Own Adventure-style?
IG-72: Themepark Quests don't branch, they have a singular goal for the most part, but it's important to us that there are multiple ways to complete each quest

Marluka: *Darkwhistle* is the dev team drawing from Star Wars novels as well as the movies to get their content?
Shug_Ninx: Yes. we're using everything we can get our hands on.
Shug_Ninx: One extreme example is the Ewok movies. The majority of our NPCs, creatures, locations, etc. are taken from the Ewok movies and even the cartoons.
Shug_Ninx: Corellia, on the other hand, is almost entirely detailed from the novels.
Shug_Ninx: Other locations and characters are pulled from the games.
Shug_Ninx: Let me clarify: all the stuff for ENDOR is taken from the Ewok movies and cartoons.

Marluka: *Caella* Mr. Barnes What SWG accomplishment are you most proud of?
JuJuBeenks: I'm most proud of the creation of "Theed" city on Naboo. We worked very hard to get it looking just like the movie - and also made it PLAY extremely well!
JuJuBeenks: I'm actually the most happy with some of the quest / NPC-interaction design we've pulled off... but you'll need to play the game to get all the details :)

Marluka: *Tobar* How hard is it to create enough content to fill a World?
Whinny_the_Hutt: It's impossible to fill-up the world. :) That's why we rely on the spawning system and the POI system and the Lair system
Whinny_the_Hutt: to populate the world around you, whereever you happen to be, so it'll seem nice and full.
Shug_Ninx: The difficulty also depends on the planet - the more we know from the continuity, the less we have to create from scratch (but the more faithful we have to be to existing sources, which is also hard).

Marluka: *SiskoBell* Will cities like Mos Espa and Theed have the scale and bustle necessary to immerse the player in the locale?
IG-72: We certainly hope so. :) It's up to us to put together the city layouts and the NPC's and make sure that it feels "busy" just like it does in the movies, so I hope we do a good job.
Q-3PO: We are about halfway through the chat.
Shug_Ninx: I can tell you that the arches in Theed are huge...

Marluka: *saberhappyjenos* How far would you go to correct a mistake in the continuity in the game that appeared post-release?
Shug_Ninx: Well, we work really closely with Lucasfilm to make sure that this is kept to a minimum.
Shug_Ninx: But, if something did come up, it would depend upon the type of continuity issue we're talking about and the impact on the game.
Shug_Ninx: And our schedules, etc.

Marluka: *ubiqVar* How will players become aware of the existance of a particular theme park?
Shug_Ninx: For the most part, we want to remain tied to continuity, but we don't want to be making sweeping changes every few months.
IG-72: The NPC's in towns and the mission system will let players know when they've achieved the proper faction standing or experience to go through a themepark

Marluka: *Spawn23* Will certain "Theme Parks" such as Jabba's Place require you to have a certain faction with the Hutts just to be allowed in ?
JuJuBeenks: Yes. You will need to have faction standing with the Hutts to gain entrance.
JuJuBeenks: Fortunately, there are NPC mechanisms that will help you gain the faction standing required.

Marluka: *JuryDuty* What's the FUNNIEST continuity question you've had to deal with so far?
Whinny_the_Hutt: Bledsoe's disease.
IG-72: The Jedi who became a tree.
JuJuBeenks: The sentient ocean. I had questions about that. They were all funny.
Shug_Ninx: Does a stormtrooper salute? Do female Mon Cal have breaasts?

Marluka: *Osheb* It's hard to come up with good questions, tell us something we want to know, something interesting that we don't know about :)
Shug_Ninx: There's so much cool stuff tied to the quests, theme parks, and POIs.
Shug_Ninx: ONe of my favorite locations right now is the Ewok lake village on Endor.
Whinny_the_Hutt: Ah, the way the ewok villages will work is cool. They are basically POI's, that you can make persist by interacting with (saving them
Whinny_the_Hutt: from bad guys or whatever)
JuJuBeenks: One thing cool - there is another Sarlacc. The Great Sarlacc in the infamous pit on Tatooine... has a sister :)
Shug_Ninx: We'll also have a place called Fort Tusken that will hopefully be an area of conflict for players and sandpeople. The fort can even change hands.

Marluka: *Syren_Mere* what is so interesting about Rori and whats it's main attractions?
JuJuBeenks: It's chock full of resources - many special ones that you won't find elsewhere.

Marluka: *TalDisante* if you can't enter a theme park at a certain time due to Faction, does it tell you what you need to enter or are you left to guess?
IG-72: The NPC's will definately let you know what you need to do. The TT8-L at Jabba's Palace will let you know, for example, that you don't have enough Hutt Faction to come inside
IG-72: And you can't start a themepark in Jabba's palace if you can't get in. :)

Marluka: *Caella* Can you name a few theme parks other then Jabba's palace?
JuJuBeenks: There is a Rebel Hideout on Corellia. Top-level Alliance fighters will be there... and they need your help!

Marluka: *SlaneCaedeez* Besides Theme Parks, will there be any story driven "Events" that involve NPCs or "mobs"? i.e. A group of stormtroopers(non-players) raid a well known rebel town, and rebels(players) help defend that town.
Whinny_the_Hutt: Yes, absolutely. The game is lousy with that sort of stuff. POI's will spawn all the time,
Whinny_the_Hutt: and are little mini-stories.

Marluka: *Ricbr* "how long does the average quest take?"
JuJuBeenks: We're shooting for a range of thirty minutes to two hours for quests.
JuJuBeenks: Each theme park is slated to offer upwards of twelve to fourteen hours of entertainment...
JuJuBeenks: and there are many theme parks :)

Marluka: *LilWookie* Will we see characters or elements that originated in other lucasarts games?
Shug_Ninx: Yes. In fact, we're including the pirate Nym from the recent Starfighter and Jedi Starfighter games. He'll be able to hand out missions to members of both the Hutt and Rebel factions.
Q-3PO: About 15 minutes left. Wow there are a lot of questions today. :)
Shug_Ninx: He's old, but we know that Feeorins don't weaken as they get older... :)

Marluka: *Vossk* Is "Rori" going to be very similar to Naboo (like Corelia vs. Talus)?
JuJuBeenks: Rori shares a lot of environmental features with Naboo.
JuJuBeenks: There are several special areas unique to Rori.

Marluka: *JuryDuty* Does a quest like this have to be completed in one sitting? Or can you log off/log on and continue?
Whinny_the_Hutt: Most of the themepark quest-series are broken into bite-sized portions. But we want you to be able
Whinny_the_Hutt: to logout and then login later to complete the quest.

Marluka: *UnadedinZinki* you say that to enter a theme park you need a certain faction standing, what about neutrals? will there be theme parks that neutrals can not enter ever?
IG-72: Neutral simply means undeclared. It's possible to have enough Hutt faction to enter Jabba's palace without "declaring" yourself a Hutt. The same goes for all the factions
IG-72: so it's possible that the neutrals can do all the themeparks
Shug_Ninx: We're also including mechanisms to allow players who have actually declared to a faction to enter another theme park dedicated to another faction.
Shug_Ninx: We frame it in the context of you being on a mission for your faction.
Shug_Ninx: So, the Imperials have sent you to infiltrate jabba's palace by doing everything you can to get in his good graces.

Marluka: *GrandCzar* What are our chances of seeing the emporor in the game?
JuJuBeenks: Pretty good... if you follow the right theme park track... and if you don't 'disappoint' anyone important (like Vader).
IG-72: The emperor will be in the game. If you're an Imperially Declared player your chances to see him will definately increase :)

Marluka: *LordIblis* In the EU (comics) Mos Espa is at the end of the classic era a ruined city - will it be that way in SWG?
Shug_Ninx: Actually, it's my understanding that only the Podrace arena is depicted as "ruined." The rest of the city is still there, albeit not as thriving as Mos Eisley.

Marluka: *Vossk* Can you give us some examples of characters found in theme parks?
JuJuBeenks: Wedge Antilles...
JuJuBeenks: Princess Leia...
IG-72: Bib Fortuna
Whinny_the_Hutt: Vader, the Emperor, Hethrir...
IG-72: Ephant Mon
IG-72: Jabba
JuJuBeenks: Boba Fett!
IG-72: Max Rebo
Shug_Ninx: Boss Nass, the Marauders on Endor.

Marluka: *Wardenman* How much humor are you working into the NPC dialog or the quests?
Whinny_the_Hutt: 52.3%
Shug_Ninx: Except on Naboo, where it's 89.5%
JuJuBeenks: We work in as much humor as is appropriate for the character. Some characters have NO sense of humor :)
Shug_Ninx: THe emperor...

Marluka: *Ranlaen_Ironside* Can you work on several quests at once or just one?
Whinny_the_Hutt: You can work on multiple quests (and multiple missions, too) simultaneously.

Marluka: *Kssob* When designing the theme parks and terrain, HAVE YOU LEFT ROOM FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF OTHER FACTIONS, like Dark Sun?
JuJuBeenks: I think you mean 'Black Sun.' :)
JuJuBeenks: We have made an expandable system for factions.
JuJuBeenks: We will definitely be able to add in different groups from SW continuity.

Marluka: *Treething* If someone with enough faction standing goes to a theme park and brings a friend who doesnt have as much. WIll both get in?
IG-72: The other player won't be able to get inside (Jabba's Palace for example) but if the quest takes them to any public areas the other player is free to tag along, help out in combat, etc.
Q-3PO: Okay, here is the final question:

Marluka: *empirewillfall* Will there be any DEV easter eggs?
IG-72: No.
Shug_Ninx: Yes.
Whinny_the_Hutt: No
JuJuBeenks: Yes.
IG-72: Maybe
Shug_Ninx: Would we tell you if there were?
IG-72: No.
Whinny_the_Hutt: No
JuJuBeenks: Yes.

Q-3PO: Any final comments from the Devs today?
Shug_Ninx: There's no "easter" in the continuity.
Shug_Ninx: Life day, maybe.
JuJuBeenks: This has been a blast. Thanks for all the comments on the boards and for a great chat. Take care!
IG-72: Goodbye, Thanks for coming out. Raph is hitting us and telling us to get back to work.
Whinny_the_Hutt: Thanks for coming to the chat! It's been fun. Bye!
Shug_Ninx: Thanks for stopping by. I'm in Austin today, so expect a trip report late this week or early next week.
Q-3PO: Thank you all for coming today. Sorry we could get to all your questions, we will send them to the developers.
We may try to answer some more on the forums later.
Q-3PO: We will also have the transcript of this chat up tomorrow (though I'm sure you can find it on our industrious fan sites already :) )
Q-3PO: Our next (and final in this current monthly series) of Dev Chats will be at the end of May.
Q-3PO: Thanks.